Thunderbirds thrash Giants in Super Netball blowout

The Thunderbirds (3-1) won every quarter at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Saturday night, setting up the lopsided result with a particularly commanding first half.

Tayla Williams and Laura Scherian controlled the middle for the Thunderbirds, while their Jamaican defensive duo, Shamera Sterling-Humphrey and Latanya Wilson, made life a nightmare for the Giants' out-of-sorts frontcourt.

"Very happy with that scoreline, being able to push on over the match," Williams said.

"All our gameplan is based off our unit's defence and we know we have Shammy (Sterling-Humphrey) in the back getting those speccy intercepts.

"We're working as a unit and that's how we build that pressure.

"We saw that with the held-balls reward today."

The defending champions dictated proceedings virtually from the opening pass as the Giants shooters struggled with held-ball turnovers and missed shots.

Jo Harten's super shot on the quarter-time buzzer ended her own shooting slump and trimmed Adelaide's advantage to 18-12.

The second term was a total disaster for the last-placed visitors.

Georgie Horjus moved from wing attack to goal attack for Adelaide and proved lethal in combination with Jamaican spearhead Romelda Aiken-George, spearheading a 12-0 spree which stretched the gap to an unassailable 37-16.

Giants shooter Sophie Dwyer, who had a whopping eight first-half turnovers, momentarily broke free of her nightmare with a hat-trick of super shots to scale the deficit back to 14 at half-time.

Williams and Scherian continued to boss the midcourt in the third stanza as the Thunderbirds marched from strength to strength.

With the Giants trailing 54-36 at three-quarter-time, Harten made an impassioned speech to her teammates in the huddle.

"This position is hard - it sucks," she said.

"But we said in our values, we were never going to surrender, so 15 minutes of that."

The Giants heeded their captain's words and refused to wave the white flag but they couldn't quite do enough to win the quarter nor avoid their heaviest defeat of the season.

Australian Associated Press